


Finality

by Leyenn



Series: The Firing Line [3]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are others who feel death, who are not so mystical and immortal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finality

**Author's Note:**

> Post-ep for _Soul Hunter_.

There are others who can feel the approach of death; the desperate rise and final fall of a consciousness, the opening of that last, absolute door. There are others who are not so mystical, who are not immortal, for whom none of this holds such appeal.

She sits at the bar, a little place at one end of the Zocalo, all but abandoned this late at night. All the Friday night fun is in the casino, and she'd like it very much if it stayed there. There are a few other patrons; a Pak'Ma'Ra seated at a far table and two dockers at the other end of the bar, but mostly she is quiet and alone. It's all she ever wants, recently, and the only thing in this place she can never find.

She doesn't drink heavily, more because the Corps teaches abstinence from such mundane pleasures than out of any personal preference. She understands that it's EarthGov who sets the rules in her life - don't gamble, don't drink more than this amount around normals, don't do this or that or any of the other thousand things she was raised to believe she doesn't need, because it was an easier pill to swallow to tell a child she was above all that. Not to tell her that her life is ruled by fear written in black and white and ratified into law by a senate of those lesser, normal people.

She understands as well, that her life will be lived from beginning to end from behind this wall of black leather and the badge she wears with pride and relief. Pride that they are here to take care of her, to be her solace when she wants nothing more than to drink herself into an oblivion that everyone around her would suddenly be able to share. Relief that this image on her breast is here to protect her, even out here; her shelter against the loneliness of this sea of minds, all whispers of temptation she can never know. Not sure, in brief moments, if it's worse that she will never allow it of herself - or that sometimes, she wants to... sometimes when they're so present and her voice is almost lost in the crowd that would it really, truly make a difference...

And then, well. Then there are times like today.

When she sees all the commotion about her and knows too well, far too well what it's all about. When she gets a brief call from Mister Garibaldi asking the kind of question no one of his intelligence should have to ask _she's missing, we need to find her. can you?_ \- and she wishes she could say yes, it's a miracle gift that works that way.

She wishes she could find a mind, a thought, an instant of emotion, pick it out from a quarter of a million buzzing whispers and tell him _yes, of course I can, I'm a telepath. I'm the miracle deux ex machina making your job obsolete, and tell me you would look at me that way if I were._

She wishes she could show him what the fear is. What it does, picking at her, warded off only inches by the badge and gloves that are hardly protection at all out here the way they were at home. She wishes she could show him the shuddering sense of death creeping up and make it mean what it means, tell him _this is what I am, this is my world and you will never understand._

She wishes there could be someone who knew, here; wishes it weren't so terribly ironic, to be who she is in the middle of the largest crowd and feel so alone.

She finishes the glass in a single mouthful. It doesn't even burn as it goes down.

  


*

  



End file.
